


you’ll be left in the dust

by natromanoffs



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Gen, but also doesn't have to be, can definitely be read as romantic jeff/britta, it could go either way so interpret it however you want, the other study group members are mentioned but aren't actually present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25078891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natromanoffs/pseuds/natromanoffs
Summary: It's the summer after Annie and Abed left, and Jeff can't sleep.
Relationships: Britta Perry & Jeff Winger, Britta Perry/Jeff Winger
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	you’ll be left in the dust

It’s the middle of the night — or the morning, really, Jeff’s not sure — and it’s fucking scorching. It’s got to be at least 100 degrees outside, right in the thick of the summer. Jeff’s got the AC running, but it’s not turned down as much as it could be. To put it simply, he doesn’t make enough money to keep his apartment chilly at night like he likes it. It’s a small price to pay for working at his favorite place in the world.

Speaking of Greendale, he feels less and less connected to it lately. It’s not as if he hasn’t spent summers before without the study group. They’ve often spent summers apart, reuniting in the fall. But it was fine, because Jeff could have a summer alone. (Well, not alone, really. He’d have girls in his bed often enough so he couldn’t feel the loneliness that threatened to make a home in the pit of his stomach.) He could spend the summer buying greasy chicken sandwiches and watching terrible procedural dramas by himself on the couch. Yeah, Jeff could spend the summer alone, because he knew the study group would be waiting for him when fall came back around.

But this summer, that simply isn’t the case. Abed’s gone off for the foreseeable future, if not forever. And though Annie’s internship is only set for the summer, he can tell that she’s almost certainly not coming back. She’s planted the seeds for not coming back. She wouldn’t need to stress the possibility of her not returning in the fall if she didn’t see it as a likely course of action. So, now, when Jeff goes back in the fall, barely anyone will be left. Frankie and Craig will be there, of course, and it seems like Chang will never leave. Britta will be there, too, having not yet finished her degree. But aside from Britta, everyone in the original study group is gone, with no prospect of returning.

Jeff really really did not plan to get so attached to the study group. But he had anyway. They became his family, a realer and better family than the so-called one that defined his childhood. Before the study group, he’d been a cocky lawyer, sleeping with women and drinking with his law buddies, but staying far removed from any real emotional connection. Now, though, he’d experienced genuine friendship and connection and love and he didn’t want to let it go. He wouldn’t let it go, if it was up to him. But it wasn’t. It so clearly wasn’t.

Everyone was leaving. Or, as Jeff found himself thinking about it, he was being left. 

God, the apartment was so fucking hot. His sweaty skin is sticking to the sheets and he can feel sweat beading on his forehead. He tosses the blanket and sheet off of him with a sigh of exasperation. He rolls over to check the time. Four a.m. He’s been lying in bed since midnight, and yet he still hasn’t been able to fall asleep. How can he, with his brain as on fire as his skin?

He’s got all these icky _feelings_ swirling around in his head. He’s beginning to feel a little nauseous. He squeezes his eyes shut for the thousandth time and wills himself to fall asleep, but of course, it’s no use. 

He’s being left. By everyone. Every single member of the original study group is gone. Except Britta. She’s all he has left, really. So he calls her.

While her phone rings, he feels blood rushing in his ears. It’s probably not a good idea to call her, not now, not sober. He should really just hang up before he says something stupid. Yes, really, hanging up is the only plan that makes sense. He pulls the phone away from his face to cancel the call, and it’s just then when she picks up.

“Hello?”

 _Fuck._ But he can’t quite hang up now, so he brings the phone back to his ear and musters up a nonchalant tone. “Hey.”

“Jeff? What are you… it’s four in the goddamn morning.” 

Her voice is slurred with sleep, and he can tell he’s just woken her up. He can’t help the smile that appears on his face. He’s always liked talking to her the most when she’s like this -- half-asleep and guard down. She’s more real and more vulnerable and more _Britta._ When she’s half-asleep like this, she’s not conscious enough to monitor what she says, so the things that slip out of her sleep-loose mouth are sweeter and tinged with emotionality. She’s more open and unprotected and when she’s like this he knows her more than he ever does when she’s awake.

“What’s up?” he says, voice still as even as always.

“What? You’re calling me, _you_ what’s up?”

Jeff just pauses. What the hell is he supposed to say? _Yeah, it’s four in the morning and I can’t sleep and everybody’s leaving me and I don’t know what to do._ That’s not something you can just say to someone, especially not when it’s four in the morning and they’re half-asleep.

“I’m just thinking about May,” he says. May meaning when Abed and Annie left. It is what he’s thinking about, but it’s just vague enough not to expose any of the sick feelings he’s dealing with at the moment.

“What about it?” she asks. She’s clearly too sleepy to do this dance with him, to let him tiptoe around what he’s truly feeling and to pick up on the nuances anyway, well enough to address them without really addressing them. She’s grown quite good at that. She’s become adept at noticing the subtext in what he says, at understanding the implications he’s making in the pauses between his words. Best of all, she can often address his feelings without doing it overtly. She can play the game right back, can tiptoe around the topic, can say something that appears entirely shallow but that gets right to the heart of what he’s struggling with.

Now, though, it’s four in the morning and she’s half asleep and she’s not picking up what he’s so vaguely putting down for her.

“Abed and Annie,” he says. 

“Yeah?”

He’s getting almost frustrated now. He just wants her to reassure him in a subtle way that doesn’t make him have to expose his vulnerabilities. But she’s not getting it. She’s sleepy and confused, and he’s lonely and desperate.

It’s so hot in this room. And trying to figure out how to verbalize this to Britta while keeping his deeper feelings at bay is exhausting, and he’s just so tired but he can’t fucking sleep. His brain is buzzing and his skin is buzzing and he’s feeling entirely overwhelmed.

“You know, they left,” he says, still keeping the emotion out of his voice. He waits for a second or two but she doesn’t say anything. “And, you know, Pierce and Shirley and Troy.”

She still doesn’t say anything. He’s sweaty and exasperated and he says: “Everyone is leaving.” A little drop of emotion colors his voice. He can’t help it.

She speaks, finally. “Jeff.” That’s all she says. It’s not _Jeff comma_ but rather _Jeff period_ and he’s not sure what to make of it.

He feels his heart beating a little faster, feels a lump growing in his throat. “Look,” he says, letting exasperation take over his voice to mask the desperation. “Everyone’s left.”

“It’s summer,” she says. “People tend to leave in the summers. Maybe they’ll come back.”

“Troy didn’t. Shirley didn’t. They won’t.”

“Okay.” She sighs. “You know they’re not gone though, right Jeff? You can still call them and keep in contact. They left but they’re not gone.” 

She pauses, and Jeff wonders if she can hear his breathing become a little ragged. 

She takes a deep breath, then: “You’re not alone, Jeff.” Her voice sounds tired but firm.

There’s an unfamiliar burning behind his eyes. “You’re the only one who hasn’t left.” He can’t help it if his voice becomes a little pleading, a little desperate. _You’re the only one who hasn’t left **me** ,_ he doesn’t say.

They both don’t say anything for a few moments. He just lays there and listens to her breathe.

“You know,” she says, “Frankie and the dean will always be here.” 

While true, at least mostly (because Craig and Frankie could up and leave whenever they felt like it, even if they wouldn’t, they could), he picks up what she’s implying. Craig and Frankie will always stay at Greendale, but..

“But you won’t,” he says. 

It’s not that he hasn’t realized that Britta will leave. Of course she will. She’s nearing the end of her course requirements, and then she’ll have a psychology degree and then she’ll go somewhere better and brighter and do something with it. Of course Britta was always going to leave. Of course everyone was going to leave. That’s what college is, really. It’s a stage of people’s lives, but not their whole lives. It’s a place you spend a few odd years in, and it’s a place that propels you to bigger and better things. That’s what Jeff had always meant Greendale to be for him. But somewhere along the way, he grew attached. Somewhere along the way, he stopped wanting to go back to being a flashy lawyer. Somewhere along the way, he didn’t want anything bigger and better because there wasn’t anything better. Because he never felt better than when he was at Greendale. But could Greendale really have the same effect if no one he loved was still a part of it? If everywhere he turned he was reminded of the friendships that had left him? Everyone else had bigger better places to go, but for Jeff, this was as good as it got. 

“Jeff?”

He’s been quiet on the line for a while now, he supposes, too lost in his thoughts.

“Hm?”

“Maybe I’ll stay here forever.” He can hear her voice go up, can tell she’s trying to put a positive spin on things. 

She’s trying to reassure him, but the notion of her staying forever is so unlikely that it does nothing but hurt him a bit more. Because that’s what he wants. He wants all of them to stay a part of Greendale forever. He wants everyone to come back and become teachers and give up the dreams they thought were best for them. He wants Greendale to be what’s best for them. He knows that it isn’t. He knows that they’ve already overstayed their time at Greendale, and that it’s about time for them to get back to the real world. But it doesn’t stop him from hating it. As much as he knows that they need to leave the nest, or whatever, he’s selfish. He’s always had a selfish streak, and it comes out at full force at times like these. He wants them to stay, needs them to, so they should. Screw bright futures and well-paying jobs and starting families. Can’t they just be happy at this dumb little community college, in this little sanctuary?

He keeps his selfishness to himself. He knows he has to let them go. He has to let their needs be more important than his. He has to let them move on and have better lives, the lives they want to have. So he keeps his selfishness to himself, but on nights like these it eats him up.

“Britta, come on. You’re not going to do that. You’re going to go to grad school at some prestigious college and you’re going to get licensed and then you’ll start up your therapy clinic, somewhere far away from Colorado. New York, maybe. Come on. There’s no universe where you spend the rest of your life at Greendale. You were built for far better things.”

“What if I don’t want better things?” she says, voice quiet but clear, the sleepiness fully gone from her voice.

“Be honest with yourself. You don’t want to stay at Greendale forever.”

“I could! I could go away and get licensed, but I could come back and be a counselor or a psychology teacher and I could spend the rest of my life here. I could do it.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“I want both. Yeah, you know, I wanna have my own therapy clinic in New York, and buy bagels for breakfast every morning, and get five more cats, and go on long walks through Central Park, and learn how to cook, and buy cheap pretzels from stands, and watch the glittering lights when it’s Christmas, and lose myself in the chilly winters, and become reaccustomed to the street piss smell. But I also want this. I want to tell reality to fuck off and I want to stay here and win paintball fights and reenact movie scenes and get too attached to my friends and sleep on pull-out couches and watch puppet shows and Britta everything up. I want…” She sighs, and doesn’t say anything else.

“You’ll be an amazing therapist. You’ll be great in New York. You’ve always been more mature than the rest of us. You’ve always known that Greendale was just a stepping stone. You’ve always known that you were outgrowing playing make-believe once a week.”

“Well, for the most mature out of all of us, I sure seem to be staying here the longest.”

“You’re the heart.”

“I don’t want to leave you behind.”

“Yeah, but you have to.”

“Not yet. I’ve still got a couple more years left before I’ll have a degree. Who knows, maybe you could move to New York with me.”

“And do what?” He takes a shaky breath. As emotional and deep as this conversation has become, he somehow finds himself calmer now than he was at the start of it. “This is all I know how to do. Greendale is the only place I know how to be.”

“Jeff,” Britta’s voice is strained now, emotion spilling into her words. _Jeff comma_. “You won’t be alone. I’ll stay here as long as you need me to.”

“That’s not what I want. I don’t want you to stay here when you don’t want to. I don’t want you to give up on your dreams for-” he scoffs, “for me.”

“But--”

“Look, there’s nothing you can do to fix this. You need to leave. Everyone needs to leave and I won’t keep you guys here just so I can feel… You know.”

“Well, I’m not gonna let you be alone.” Her voice is high-pitched and desperate, and if he knows her as well as he thinks he does then he can tell her eyes are filling with tears. “I’ll move to New York but I’ll call you every week. We’ll get study group Skype sessions going.”

“Britta..”

“Come on! You can never be alone when you have us. Okay, maybe Troy and Shirley never call but I won’t be like them. And if you really think you’re going to go the rest of your life without hearing from Annie and Abed again then you don’t know this group.”

Britta’s not entirely wrong. Jeff’s already got a couple texts from Abed, and Annie’s been sending him Snapchat selfies from D.C. He still keeps up with Shirley’s life on Facebook. No one’s heard from Troy in years, but Jeff refuses to believe he’s _truly_ gone. He’ll come back someday. And he does believe Britta will call him weekly when she leaves Greendale. She’ll call him weekly and let him complain about his students and she’ll complain about her classmates and they’ll talk about everything: the weather, the others, the past, the future, and everything in between.

But Jeff also knows that over time, Britta’s calls will become less and less frequent. She’ll become busy dealing with her clients, and learning how to cook, and she’ll find a new boyfriend and spend all her time with him. The weekly calls will become monthly calls, and then calls on holidays only, and eventually things will peter out to liking each other’s Facebook updates and wishing her a happy engagement via Instagram comment. 

“Why’d you call me tonight?”

Oh, right, Britta’s still on the line.

“It’s really hot in my apartment and I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I’m getting a little sleepy now, though.” And he is. He doesn’t quite feel better. He’s still going to be left here, the last remaining member of the study group still at Greendale. Sure, maybe he’ll meet new professors and students and create a new Greendale committee, or a teacher’s group, or something. But it will never be the same, because it won’t have all of them, the people he loves more than anything, as uncomfortable as it makes him to admit it. Whether he likes it or not, this is the truth. They are leaving, and he’s staying at Greendale, where he belongs. 

He’ll be fine. He’ll still have Craig and Frankie, and he’ll still have Britta for a little while. He’ll be fine. He’ll get on Facebook and wish them all happy birthday, throwing in a smattering of random emojis for comedic effect, but also so they don’t think too hard about the heart emoji he throws into the mix. He’ll still think of them daily. He’ll still find particularly interesting recipes to send to Shirley, he’ll still watch an occasional movie with Abed over Zoom. He’ll still meet up with Annie sometimes, and they’ll laugh about all the old escapades they used to get up to. He’ll still call Britta from time to time to argue about the stupidest things, just to hear her laugh exasperatedly when he won’t back down from whatever dumb point he’s trying to make. 

He’s being left. They’re leaving. But he’ll be fine. He’ll keep in touch with them enough not to lose them. Yeah, maybe he’ll look back at their time as a study group wistfully, but as sad as he’ll be about losing what they used to have, it’ll be overshone by just how grateful he is. Even if he had to lose it, it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Even if they gradually talk to each other less and less until he barely knows what’s going on in their lives anymore, he’ll still have the memories of the time they spent together. No one can take that away from him. He can pour over his recollections and it’ll be bittersweet. But the sweetness will be enough to get him through. The sweetness will be enough to help him fall asleep.

The line’s been silent for a while.

“Well, goodnight, Jeff.”

“Goodnight.”

And he finally falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> i just finished watching community for the first time, and i'm feeling very emotional about jeff winger so this is my way of working thru my feelings lmao :-)


End file.
